I'm just quoting you right now to show how pathetic and empty you sound. "Economics" are more important than workers' rights? Laws of supply and demand do not shift or upend suddenly because the workers take a week off to see their families and enjoy the holidays (unless the work stoppage is without warning). Maybe it does up in Wall Street, but they never really deal with actual products, do they?

heh heh, does this look like these are the would be workers who want to be exploited? Get a grab on the labor issue in China if you want to rant too hard. If Foxconn job is really that bad, no one will want to work for them if they have a choice. If they don't have a choice, that is what the labor market pay for in China at the moment. That is supply/demand 101. It applies to US also. There are a lot of workers in US that have to accept wages that they think is too low and working hours that they think is too long and work through holidays as well. What is the difference?

Thousands of Chinese job seekers lined up outside Foxconn’s Chengdu plant where a huge summer recruitment drive is taking place. Foxconn is apparently looking to take on a large number of new employee’s for the summer months not only at its Chengdu plant but also at the Zhengzhou plant too. The information comes from a report by MIC Gadget.

Heavy rains have battered Chengdu over the past few days, but this won’t stop young jobseekers lining up for Foxconn summer jobs at the Foxconn plant in Chengdu. Thousands of people were lining up, and they were armed with rain gear and umbrellas, standing out in the rain just for a chance to audition.

heh heh, does this look like these are the would be workers who want to be exploited? Get a grab on the labor issue in China if you want to rant too hard. If Foxconn job is really that bad, no one will want to work for them if they have a choice. If they don't have a choice, that is what the labor market pay for in China at the moment. That is supply/demand 101. It applies to US also. There are a lot of workers in US that have to accept wages that they think is too low and working hours that they think is too long and work through holidays as well. What is the difference?

*****
Many Chinese jobseekers want those jobs at Foxconn. Apparently, the Foxconn plant in Chengdu is hiring now for summer jobs – and according to our sources, the plant is hiring a large number of summer workers, which may still have openings. What’s more, the young jobseekers are required to submit a registration fee of 150 Chinese yuan (about $24) before he/she could apply for the summer job. And there’s a requirement for applying the job, you need to have good eyesight.
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It amazes me how Apple can foresee these things. I assumed the iPad Mini would find a sort of niche, but I never expected it to be that much of a hit (especially with all the press focusing on the disappointment over a non-retina display). But once again, Apple seems to know what the public wants. It makes sense that they came out with the iPad 4 when they did, to keep the interest up in that device and prevent too much cannibalization. It seems that Apple might be aiming more toward an iPad (the Mini) and an iPad Pro lineup for the future.

That's funny. As I recall Apple (Steve Jobs) was dead against the mini. but now that he is gone and Apple sees the sales of the other 7 inch tablets they came out with their own.
Although seeing it do so well being to generations behind its bigger brother is surprising me. I see no need for the 7 inch ipad 2 myself. I love my 10 inch is great.

Not quite. I've been a vegetarian for nearly 40 years and I also admired Jobs and his attitude to detail and his love of good design and so on and so forth. Yet while I would consider myself an esotericist, I am also a pragmatist.

I will have have Job's 'here's to the crazy ones...' quote on my new website which is just beginning and in fact will change the world, yet none of this would preclude me from taking a scientific and pragmatic view of the human body. I really for the life of me cannot fathom where Jobs' head could have been at. And as you know when it was too late he suddenly did become pragmatic about it.

Yes, human behavior can be quite mysterious. No one really knows what went on in Steve Jobs mind at the time. There was an obvious flaw in his thinking, but this is the human condition. No one is perfect. Not even you.

Let's see. To start, on the hardware side of things, it has a far faster quad core A9 CPU and NVIDIA GPU, and double the RAM. While many people on this forum like to completely ignore hardware stats, the fact of the matter is that they make everything run better. Take a look at the extremely taxing game Shadowgun Deadzone, for example, to see what I mean. I played the game on an iPad 2, and the graphics on the Nexus 7 were better at a far higher FPS. Second, it has a higher resolution true HD display. Put a Nexus 7 next to a mini and play a high quality movie file. Next, unlike every WiFi only Apple product, every Nexus 7 has a GPS and offline maps. I replaced my standalone GPS unit with my Nexus, and use it for turn by turn often. Fourth, while mostly subjective, in my opinion, at this point the Nexus simply has the better OS. Before Android 4, iOS had the lead, and was overall better. In the Android 2.X days, many early tablets were little more than oversized phones, but not any more. With Android 4.2, you get a true tablet optimized OS. Under Android, to list just a few things I regularly do, I am able to plug various USB devices into my Nexus such as an external HD or flash drive, or game controller, have file access and not be tied to iTunes, have user accounts to be able to share the tablet with my family, Adobe Flash, ability to install whatever apps I want, eg banned WiFiFoFum, and many other things, none of which I could do on the any iOS device. Finally, you get all of this for over a hundred cheaper, with the Nexus 7 16GB starting at just $199, instead of $329. The device is a true winner, IMO, at any price...

Well said. If you use price and optional connectivity as your most important values then you have a valid point to make. If however, you use build quality and software stability instead, you stick with Apple. I prefer brushed metal over plastic. I don't mind paying more for this. You are also comparing the top of Samsungs product line with the bottom of Apple's line. It appears you are very happy with your nexus 7 and I say great, enjoy it. Why come on an Apple forum and brag that you are smarter and got a better deal that all us poor deluded Apple fans. Why not go to a Samsung rumors site and brag there?

Do you consider it "slacking" to expect to have Saturday and Sunday free? (or any combination of five days work, two days off)

Your post is simply astounding, and not in a good way.

The story is being reported by many sites - if you don't trust Huffington (are you a Republican?) simply do a Bing for "chinese hidden slave labor letter" and look at the hundreds of hits.

Not believing in it doesn't make it go away.

I don't limit myself by consigning to any political persuasion. I'm sure you are a left wing democrat though. (The party of victimhood). In my younger days there was a time when I worked about 100 hours a week with no days off. I did this for 6 weeks straight. I was not a slave or a victim. I only got paid double time and I thought I was very lucky at the time. There is such a thing as "slave labor". This doesn't qualify.

heh heh, and you believe the letter? The average Chinese workers who work in assembly line doesn't even has any education. i.e. they may or may not be able to write in Chinese, let alone English. And the letter is written partially in English.. How do the writer learn English? And if he does not like the condition so much, why wouldn't he quit? There is certainly a big fight within China now to raise the wages and working condition. But there are plenty of working opportunties in China that if someone has the ability, they are able to find job. The problem is whether their skill is worth the money that they are asking for.

Let's see. To start, on the hardware side of things, it has a far faster quad core A9 CPU and NVIDIA GPU, and double the RAM. While many people on this forum like to completely ignore hardware stats, the fact of the matter is that they make everything run better. Take a look at the extremely taxing game Shadowgun Deadzone, for example, to see what I mean. I played the game on an iPad 2, and the graphics on the Nexus 7 were better at a far higher FPS. Second, it has a higher resolution true HD display. Put a Nexus 7 next to a mini and play a high quality movie file. Next, unlike every WiFi only Apple product, every Nexus 7 has a GPS and offline maps. I replaced my standalone GPS unit with my Nexus, and use it for turn by turn often. Fourth, while mostly subjective, in my opinion, at this point the Nexus simply has the better OS. Before Android 4, iOS had the lead, and was overall better. In the Android 2.X days, many early tablets were little more than oversized phones, but not any more. With Android 4.2, you get a true tablet optimized OS. Under Android, to list just a few things I regularly do, I am able to plug various USB devices into my Nexus such as an external HD or flash drive, or game controller, have file access and not be tied to iTunes, have user accounts to be able to share the tablet with my family, Adobe Flash, ability to install whatever apps I want, eg banned WiFiFoFum, and many other things, none of which I could do on the any iOS device. Finally, you get all of this for over a hundred cheaper, with the Nexus 7 16GB starting at just $199, instead of $329. The device is a true winner, IMO, at any price...

The problem is that despite all the hardware the use of the hardware in the core OS and standard apps (not games) is awful. All that extra memory and CPU is wasted trying to do triple (!) buffering and other hacks to make up for bad graphics algorithms.

Chrome and Facebook are both laggy and stuttery especially if you scroll on a page with lots of graphics. It's just awful.